| This thesis identifies the Democratic party in Civil War Pennsylvania as existing along a shifting political continuum. This continuum ranged from the War Democrats, whose support for the Union war effort aided the Republican administration of Abraham Lincoln, to the Peace Democrats, whose obstructionist principles aimed to derail the North's commitment to win the war. This work argues that different segments of the Democratic continuum controlled state politics at different times throughout the war, dependent upon changes in the Democracy's perception of political, military, economic, and social events that the war wrought. Furthermore, this thesis contends that the ideologies along this Democratic continuum were too varied to promote unity among Pennsylvania's party leaders, contributing to the Democracy's ultimate failure to compete successfully against their Republican opponents in wartime state politics. |
